We've arrived in Salerno! We've travelled 851nm since we left Cagliari on 24 September, seen some amazing places and developed a deep-rooted love for Italy and Italians. Our little boat has kept us safe and mostly dry and has really felt like home the last couple of months - we'll be sad to leave her, albeit temporarily.

To bring things up to speed, after Ventotene we sailed to Ischia. The weather started to get a bit more unsettled and we resigned ourselves to the fact that winter must have finally arrived in the Med (saying that, 18 degrees is still not bad for November, drizzle or no drizzle!). We'd planned for 2 days of exploring the island since we'd heard very good things but unfortunately the weather had other ideas and we were forced to accept that we'd have to leave after 1 day if we wanted to get to Capri (our next stop) any time soon. On the plus side, this was really the first place we've been to this year where scooter hire seemed to be a viable option so we jumped at the chance despite the risk of rain - it's not like we're strangers to the concept of getting wet whilst in transit. Ischia is beautiful but we needn't have worried about being short on time - it's tiny! We scooted around the whole island (and then back on ourselves a few times), stopping to wander around and sample cappuccinos en route, in the space of about 5 hours. Getting back to the boat early meant we were able to move to a nearby anchorage below a castello on the NE side for the night. We watched the sun go down with a glass of wine and a couple of games of Sh*thead (as you do), it was really postcard stuff.

The journey to Capri was brilliant. We have two different speed meters on the boat, one on the GPS and one which measures the flow of water past the hull. Of course they never agree and rarely do they actually conform to distance covered in a given time - which so far has invariably been 5nm per hour, it's our magic number. However, on the journey to Capri we were making 6.8nm an hour - granted this is still less than 8mph and not exactly Formula 1-worthy but for us it was incredible!! Capri was nice but I suspect that on certain days (including the day we arrived) around half the populace consists of people on cruise ship tours. We took the funicular up to Capri town, walked to the south side of the island and saw some rocks off the coast which Gerard tells me are famous in the sailing community; I then proceeded to try and convince him (successfully as it turned out) that since we'd now seen them, perhaps the 5nm detour to sail past them the next day was less vital. After that, failing to find an enticing spot for lunch in the town, we went back down to the marina and endured a bit of daylight robbery for a couple of coffees and a croissant. Anacapri was a similar experience, nice views but not much going on. I started to worry that we'd been spoiled by all the amazing places we've seen in such a short space of time and that we'd maybe become desensitised, but having arrived now in Salerno I think perhaps Capri is just over-rated.

The journey to Salerno cured our concerns about winter - glorious sunshine, my nose even ended up a bit pink. We couldn't have asked for a better place to stay for winter: the marina is brand new (parts of it are still being built in fact) so everything is sparkling clean and very modern; the staff are incredibly friendly and speak perfect English which is helpful (as we learned the hard way in Cagliari); they provide free bikes to help you get around and also have a shuttle service to the town; the town itself is much bigger than we expected and has a lot of charm - particularly at the moment since they have an annual festival from November to January which primarily seems to involve adorning every street with as many Christmas lights as possible. Genius! (Photos to follow - we forgot the camera on our first trip) Hilariously things outside the marina are not quite as efficient as inside and we were caught offguard when we discovered that the tickets for the metro (which apparently opened the day before we arrived) cannot be obtained in the metro station. Instead, they're sourced from a non-descript tabacchi (similar to a newsagent - if newsagents only sold cigarettes and chocolate) about 1km away. Thankfully we had 30mins until the next train to try and find it… we made it with about 2 mins to spare.

Today we started the process of getting Starfire ready for winter. We had a reasonably manageable to do list and planned to get everything sorted in 2 days because after that the boat's being hauled out of the water and we can't stay on it while it's on land. Our main task for day 1 was to get the sails down and folded, maybe an hour's work max. The genoa was simple enough, unfortunately when we got to the mainsail we discovered a vital screw had corroded and wouldn't budge. After about 3 hours of hammering screwdrivers and drilling, I was ready to give up but Gerard persevered for one last attempt and finally got it out! You can't beat sailing/boat ownership for life lessons, it's just not possible to do it without a hefty dose of patience, determination, communication… all good qualities to develop!

The last couple of months have gone by so quickly, I can't believe how much we've done. This week I've been actively trying not to wish the time away but at the same time getting crazy excited about catching up with people! We're off to Iceland on 13November, a wedding present from my parents and somewhere I've always wanted to go - fingers crossed we get to see some Northern Lights! I reckon it might be a bit of a shock to the system… as I write this it's 9.30pm and I've still got shorts on. So this will probably be my last blog post for a couple of weeks, the next will be from South America where we commence phase 2!